the raptors in RAID would be faster, but oh my god the noise would be ear splitting. I always hear how if you got a RAID array, your going to lose data, and how unsafe it is. Let me ask you this, does it make any difference if you have four disks in RAID, and one goes bad, or you have one disk in normal operation and it goes bad? No,still the same outcome. So go ahead and RAID away to your hearts content. A few pointers, first , do not overclock your system to the point that it is not stable. It is better to get your system stable before you install anything, including the OS.(this applys to all computers, RAID or not). The reason people have their problems with RAID arrays is usually from data corruption, not from failed hard disks. In RAID 0, the more disks you add, the faster it will be (up to the limit of the interface,ie SATA,SATA II,IDE etc.).

Should I use 4 36gb Raptors in RAID 0+1 for the OS or should I just use 4 7200RPM SATA's?

I would use four SATAs in RAID 0, with one IDE for backup, Raptors are fast , but they are noisy ,run hot, and are expensive. So if you don't mind noise and got plenty of cash,go for it. Another thing is Raptors are SATA 150, so that is the max speed your RAID will run with them. And if your RAID controller is not SATA II, you will not be able to go faster anyway even with SATA IIs. But if you got a SATA II RAID, you can hit up to 3 gigs per sec. with SATA II hard drives in RAID 0.

You will have much better performance if you use the raptor for your os. In your case I would use 2x rators raid 0 for os and games. Put no data on these because of potential for data loss. then I would have the other 4 drives in raid 0+1 or raid 5 for speed and redundancy. You definately want the os on the raptors.

Originally posted by cobalt817 I always hear how if you got a RAID array, your going to lose data, and how unsafe it is. Let me ask you this, does it make any difference if you have four disks in RAID, and one goes bad, or you have one disk in normal operation and it goes bad? No,still the same outcome.

Not exactly. Although you will get the same outcome, with four disks running, you are four times as lkely to have a disk failure. Granted you will rarely have a 4 disk spanned RAID setup, you get the point. With RAID 0, you are twice as likely to have a disk failure. If you do RAID 0+1, you are safe, because upon failure of a disk, the same information is stored on another disk, so no worries.

All of this sounds bad, but think about how rare a disk failure is. Say a disk failure chance is 1%. In RAID 0, you would have a 2% chance of data loss.

My god.....if money is such a concern then why the **** are you getting a 7800 GTX 512, a X1900XTX kils that thing for less money AND FX-60? Im sorry but wooow....But yeah a TB of storage what gives?..hmm

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